


the one worth taking

by walkthegale



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017)
Genre: Confessions, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/F, Femslash, First Kiss, Hurt/Comfort, Magic, Pre-Canon
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-07-16
Updated: 2020-07-16
Packaged: 2021-03-05 02:20:18
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/25306627
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/walkthegale/pseuds/walkthegale
Summary: Ada is good at hiding, when she needs to be. Hecate should not have been able to follow her, but here she is.
Relationships: Ada Cackle/Hecate Hardbroom
Comments: 18
Kudos: 50
Collections: The Hackle Summer Trope Challenge





	the one worth taking

**Author's Note:**

> For week 7 of the 2020 Hackle Summer Trope Challenge: https://cassiopeiasara.tumblr.com/post/623455763902431232/hackle-summer-trope-challenge-week-7-of-8
> 
> Prompt: **Confessions**
> 
> (Canon divergent - this ignores Hecate's confinement.)

“It’s raining,” Hecate says.

Ada is dimly aware that she should probably be surprised. She got on her broom, and she flew as far as she could, and then she flew further yet. She doesn’t know how long she flew for, but she didn’t stop until she was far enough away. Until she couldn’t feel even a trace of Agatha, the unpleasant sensation of Agatha’s magic no longer niggling in the back of her mind the way only a twin’s could.

The place she finally stopped flying is high up, close enough to the sky that she feels like she could actually be flying still. A wreath of thick, damp fog obscures the land below, and here, where all the world might be a myth told by the ragged greenery to the dark rock it clings to, Ada can stop flying, can hold herself still and feel her blood tearing through her veins. Her heartbeat in her ears hers alone.

She should be surprised. She knows that for the first few miles she must have left a blazing trail of magic strong enough that a First Year could have tracked her, but after that, after she regained some small corner of her self-control… Ada is good at hiding, when she needs to be. Hecate should not have been able to follow her. No one should. Ada is good at hiding, but apparently not as good as she thought.

Hecate stands a little distance from her, drops of rain beginning to collect on her hair and shoulders, and Ada is suddenly aware that her own clothes are soaked through. Her own hair hangs limp and sodden against her cheeks, and now, only now, she can feel the sharp bite of the wind through her wet dress, stinging against her skin.

She shivers, and it turns into shaking, and once she starts, she can’t stop, teeth rattling together in her head.

Hecate takes a half a step towards her, raises her hand as though to cast. Ada flinches. It’s automatic, no thought involved, the action carried on the swirl of emotion in her gut. Hecate pauses instantly.

“I… it was a drying spell,” Hecate says, her hand curling closed at her side. “I’m sorry, I should have asked.”

“Yes, you should.” It bursts from Ada, her voice catching, jagged in her throat. “Why are you here, Hecate?” She sees Hecate recoil, and Ada’s anger flares, hot and unrestrained and mingled with a thick, nasty wash of shame.

Folding her arms about her middle, looking down at the slick, muddy ground, Ada takes a breath, and then another. She’s shaking still, a violent tremor that’s only partly about the cold. She can’t stop.

“Ada, may I?” Hecate’s tone is low, gentle. Ada wants to tell her _no_. Wants to lash out, to tell her to leave, to scream at her for following when by all rights she shouldn’t even have had the ability to. How _dare_ Hecate be here, and see Ada like this. See what absolute blind fury her confrontation with Agatha has reduced her to.

The rain keeps falling, chill and uncomfortable against Ada’s soaked skin. Ada does not say no. She knows, really, that she’s too wound up to cast effectively herself. She knows, really, that there’s no one she trusts more than Hecate to cast on her, no matter the circumstance.

She nods, her voice small. “Please.” She can’t quite look up and meet Hecate’s eyes.

She feels Hecate’s magic spark, and then a wave of familiar, welcome warmth. Her dress feels immediately lighter as the water leaves it, and her hair is now merely damp, no longer dripping down her back. The briefest of moments later the steady drumming of the rain stops and she realises Hecate has cast a protection spell over them both, shielding them from the worst of the weather.

Hecate is silent, and Ada is grateful for it. Her face is still wet despite the shelter, and she realises she’s crying. She takes another breath, trying to get hold of herself, to find some semblance of self-control. What Hecate, with so much control of her own, must think of Ada right now, a furious, teary mess of a witch, out here on some desolate clifftop, because she let her damned sister get into her head again. What a truly _excellent_ example of a headmistress, Ada Cackle. Sterling work.

“I’m sorry,” she says, eventually, and is proud of how steady the words are. “I had no right to snap at you. It wasn’t… I was angry, and it wasn’t your fault.”

Hecate does step closer now, near enough that Ada could reach out and touch her arm, but she doesn’t.

“I’m sorry I followed you,” Hecate’s eyes are wide, with a shine to them that Ada hasn’t seen before. That, if she didn’t know better, she might think was unshed tears. “You were so upset, and I… I perhaps did not consider that you might wish to be alone.”

“How did you follow me?” Ada’s curiosity gets the better of her, taking over from her other tumult of emotions for a moment.

Hecate flushes, just a little. “I am quite accomplished at tracing magic.”

Ada finds she wants to smile, somehow. “Well,” she says. “I hope I never want to hide from you, Hecate Hardbroom. I would be hard pressed to manage it.”

She does reach out, then, and brushes Hecate’s arm with the tips of her fingers. Hecate remains very still, as though Ada were a wild animal who might startle easily. Ada supposes she can't blame her for that.

“ _Why_ did you follow me?” is the next thing Ada asks. She doesn’t remove her hand from Hecate’s arm. The air between them feels heavier than it did a moment ago, like time has slowed in this space and for them alone. The taut elastic stretch like the instant after magic has been gathered but before a spell has been released.

Ada came here to leave her emotions behind her. She came here because today was too much to bear - too much frustration, too much sadness. Because if she didn’t fly far and fast and find her space, she might have shattered into a thousand pieces. 

She came here because she couldn’t face so much as the shadow of another person anywhere near her. But here is Hecate. Hecate, standing right in front of her. Hecate’s scent and presence and magic, and so very few minutes prior, Ada would have said that she couldn’t have borne it. That it would have felt like sandpaper against her raw nerves.

And yet. Here Hecate is. And Ada of before would have been wrong, because, almost despite herself, Hecate’s presence is… good. Something of a balm, even through anger and embarrassment. It does not heal Ada’s hurt, but perhaps it helps, just a little.

“You were upset,” Hecate says again, and then stops, awkwardly, like she knows there should be more to her explanation but she can’t quite find it.

Ada waits. Her fingers feel warm where they’re resting against Hecate’s sleeve, like some of her magic has gathered there unintentionally.

Hecate’s gaze flits from Ada’s face to her hand, and then back to her eyes again. “I want to… support you. I care about you, Ada. You are my - my friend.” She swallows, visibly fumbling for words. “I think very highly of you.”

Ada can feel her anger melting away. Her sister, their argument, the stress of her situation back at the academy, all seems suddenly terribly far away. The way she had wanted it to be, when she came here. She can hear her own heartbeat, but now it speaks of Hecate. Not a part of her problems, back there, but standing with her, here, a part of her.

She knew, of course, that she had feelings for Hecate. She knew, before this day, that she wanted something of Hecate that differed from the friendship they had already built. Perhaps she did not know, she considers now with a wry smile, quite how far gone she really was.

After a moment, Hecate moves as though to step in closer, but Ada watches her pull herself up short, with a jerk of her head and a sharp flutter of her hands, as though caught by an invisible force.

It has stopped raining, Ada realises, out beyond the edges of Hecate’s spell. The wind has picked up a little, and is clearing some of the fog from the valley below them. She looks away from Hecate long enough to see that there’s a lake down there, and a winding river. It must, on better days, be a beautiful view.

She realises too, that her hand still rests on Hecate’s arm. Without letting herself second-guess it, she slides it down the length of Hecate’s forearm and slips her hand into Hecate’s. Hecate’s skin is cool and soft, and her hand tightens around Ada’s.

The wind dries the last of the tears on Ada’s cheeks. She considers that maybe it has blown some debris from her soul too, in passing, and then is rather glad she didn’t say that out loud.

When she turns back to Hecate, she becomes aware of quite how close they’re standing now. She can smell Hecate’s perfume, feel the warmth of her. Without thinking, like it’s nothing at all, she stands up on her tiptoes and leans towards Hecate. Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realises that Hecate is leaning down towards her, too.

When she kisses Hecate, or when Hecate kisses her, all Ada knows is how absolutely and perfectly right this feels. That Hecate should be here, with her, by her side and in her arms, just like this.

She breaks away, thinking to check that Hecate wants this as much as she does, and her answer is right there in Hecate’s soft smile and burning eyes. In the way she cups her hand at the back of Ada’s head and pulls her in for another kiss, deep and demanding, her mouth hot against Ada’s own, until they’re both more than a little breathless.

“Hecate,” Ada says, after a while, her fingers still laced tightly between Hecate’s, like she might never let go. “I care about you too.”


End file.
